Progressive Perception
by caterwauling
Summary: Be the thing I can hold on to and I'll let everything go for you.


Disclaimer: Haven't even read it.

A/N: This may be OC [rf to above] especially Fang. sorry. And it's a little long winded and I didn't have inspiration for the front parts and it might be slightly AU and other than the flock or characters mentioned in this oneshot, no other characters exist, and I'm rambling. Blah. If you spot mistakes, please leave it in a review. This was originally supposed to end up NudgexMax [not necessarily in that order. As in not semexuke. Wait. Is it called semexuke in yuri? sigh. Yaoi fangirl issues.] but...

Birthday fic for **STARszx** :]

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><p>Max stares into the mirror as she combs her hair. She lifts a hand to trace the swollen red around her eyes. At eighteen, she has cried all the tears she will ever cry. Of course, this is not true, but Max is a teenager-in her late teens but a teenager nonetheless- and it is only instinct to punctuate her sentences with exaggerations and dramatic sobs and the involuntarily tightening of her fists in the bed sheets. Her reflection fixes her with a cool calculating stare, lips pursed and disapproving. This facade only serves to antagonizes her more than anything that's happened over the weekend. She is tense and shaking with anger, like a volcano waiting to lash out, waiting to rain down on anyone, everyone, its molten lava, fast and fiery and furious.<p>

"What do you expect, huh? Just _leave it_? Get _over it_? He had his _reasons_?" snarls Max, and the reflection says _I have learnt not to expect anything from you. _

Says _you are too stubborn._

Says _even if he had, I don't think you would understand._

"How dare you," Max seethes, "copy what I do when you're exact opposite. Fuck off. I don't need you to do the thinking for me." _You are not thinking,_ the mirror says back to her face, and she wants to scream, to shout, to do anything but cry again. She hates it, hates this feeling, because she is once again reminded of-

-she had been so angry then. Angry at Nudge for getting so wasted in her tiny leather dress and oh-so-sexy gutters, angry at Fang for getting just as drunk and even hornier, angry at herself breaking her promise never to see him again. In her self-induced state of madness, it had seemed like common sense to ignore all forms of public transport and race through the overflowing streets, blind herself from disapproving stares and brave though waves of blatant frustration radiating off busy drivers with a speed that could only be described as desperate, only to find that after wanting so badly to scream and shout and smash Fang right through the smooth tiles of his cold marble floor and on a shortcut to hell, when faced with those shimmering piceous depths, it was inevitable that she would let go of herself and spiral down into the dark bottomless eyes just to salvage that faint spark of light. Fallen so far, Max had enclosed herself within that tight warmth that was her sanctuary, and like the first time, she hadn't been able to claw her way back up.

She had barely noticed when Fang's arms snaked around her as autumn's leaves drifted in from the open front door to land like butterflies on their skin, fairies in their hair. It wasn't until Fang had whispered enough _'I'm sorry_'s to touch her so hard it bruised that Max had finally pushed him away, slapped him, and traveled back to her house, this time via the bus. Blankets had been pulled up and over her head, doors locked and phone switched off to block out the incessant pounding on her door. But underneath the blankets, the pounding had only grown louder and louder, until five minutes later, when the loud thuds had ceased to be and Fang was hoisting himself over the window ledge and into her room.

Max had thrown at him the same tirade of words and phrases that teenage school life had thrown at her. She should have known, though: surviving abysmal situations required a fair dosage of insanity and determination; he had stood still as her anger piled fire on waves of distress, red and foamy blue swirling about each other, rising above snow-capped mountains, exploding when there was nothing left in space to sustain them, going out in brilliant swaths of gold and crimson, dotted with sprays of twirling blue crystals. But as tiny stars and glittering stones fell from above the delicate patchwork of clouds, everything melted into white and settled gracefully into the snowy background, and she had clung to him as his arms wrapped around her so tight that none of the cold could reach her.

"I'm sorry. Really. I didn't mean it. I was drunk... and she was drunk... Goddammit Max, please don't... I love you." Fang's voice had been a warm sauna pooling at the dips and creases of her ear. _Don't what?_Max had wanted to ask, to have one last attempt at striking him down with bitterness. Then cold lips had pressed against hers and she had realized that falling out of love was the hardest thing she had never done, and like so many others, never would do.

Later, they would sit in the garden and he would draw out two large dull grey pebbles from along the grass, carve "Max" on one, "Fang" on the other and turn them into something else entirely. Seventeen more tiny grey pebbles would be taken and placed carefully to enclose their names within a heart. Nineteen pebbles altogether. She hadn't known why she had bothered to count and she still doesn't know why. Maybe it was the way the number nineteen had looked in her mind, a line curved and somewhat serpentine bending towards a strong tenacious chassis. Fang would smile at her, somewhat shy, somewhat hopeful, and the questioning twist of her eyebrows would give way to bubbles of laughter drifting to surround them, and in their little circle of happiness, on the soft patch of grass that was their make-do-field, facing long black hair and deep smiling eyes, everything would be alright.

It starts to drizzle and soon, the rain intensifies to the point where it is a thick fogged up sheet of glass, broken shards beating at her curtain, her floor. They land on the mirror, tear treks slipping down her reflection, distorting it with a sorrow that is not hers. Her hair, recently washed, is made dirty from the cold ruthless pounding of the rain. She leaves the window open. Let it rain, she doesn't care. It'll stop eventually anyway. Crying has never changed anything.

-x-x-

It is evening when she sees them.

They are standing across the street, her curly brown hair bouncing in the breeze as she lets loose another fit of giggles. Max can't see his face but she has a hunch he's smirking, and somehow it bothers her. He hasn't looked this relaxed in months. But then again, she hasn't seen him in months. Her jaw tightens as jealousy come whizzing along, its sharp claws ever-ready, seeping in under her eyes and piercing through her heart.

The bus comes and she can barely make out the two figures as it casts a large dark shadow on them. She squints painfully and is rewarded with tiny _un_important details: his hand on the small of her back as they board the bus, one shoulder slightly forward, protective, and in this she sees morning dew sliding off the backbone of a blade of grass onto the smaller strand beneath it. Abruptly, she turns, hands clenched and nails digging into her flesh. Max takes no notice of the marks they leave behind- cheap things don't count for much in her memory bank.

But for many years after that, what she remembers is this: black hair fluttering in the breeze, arms slack and body bent slightly forward, memories sliding off a curved back to give way to peals of laughter, pangs of jealousy.

-x-x-

Life, she thinks, is full of ironies.

Like the proud but guilty feeling that had coiled around the edges of her smile when she, then six, had won the spelling contest because her opponent had not been able to attend.

Like the water flowing gently through the two banks behind Angel's house, the same water that rams against makeshift wooden boats, leaving only floating wooden splints and rusty iron nails when it finally calms.

Like the time they flew so high to dance on the clouds with the stars magnified and the moon above them brighter than ever, only to have to descend from their tranquility when the thin air proved too much for their lungs.

Like the marzipan he had bought for her _-it's your favorite, right?_- when news of her mother's death came just a day after they had come back from fighting, victorious with battle scars and all. Between clinging to him and sobbing her heart out, she had spooned scoop after scoop of marzipan into her mouth while he had said everything from _it's alright, she'll always be watching over you_ to _don't worry, if need be, you've still got me to protect you. _To which she had blubbered _I don't need your protection _before starting the waterworks all over again.

It had been clichéd, it had been bittersweet. And _-oh god-_she couldn't have loved him more.

-x-x-

"Happy birthday, Max!" Iggy's smile creases at his next-to-colorless blue eyes, marking the crushing stress of the twenty-first century.

"It's only six in the morning, Iggy. The others aren't even on their way here yet," grumbles Max. She is surprised to find how unexcited she is about meeting them. There has only ever been one person she wants to see. _Are you coming with her? _she wonders.

_Are you coming?_

_We had fun the last time you came. Right?_

"It's not like you didn't wake up at five."

"But still..." In the end, though, she lets Iggy in. It's not him, but maybe one-to-one early morning celebrations can still be fun. Maybe she can try to make it fun.

So when Iggy crushes his lips against hers, it is for this reason that she doesn't pull away.

Anyhow, it shouldn't be much of a stretch. The bent pane of Iggy's back isn't all that different from the steady vertebrae of another, one that could balance her sky along the grooves and ridges of his spine. If she closes her eyes and fists her hands in his hair, she can pretend that auburn exists as just another variation of black, and her lips, dry and numb from a winter's night, shouldn't be able to tell the difference between soft cherub lips and rough ones. Rough enough to leave a scar yet smooth enough to coat it with a spread of honeyed words. _Fake. All fake._

Numb, blind, scarred, Max shouldn't be able to tell the difference. But she does.

She does.

-x-x-

The phone rings. "Max, th...this is Nudge and I... I... you-" A few more words and she drops her book and her strawberry milkshake and takes to the skies.

-x-x-

The physics of flying is a smooth quick curve. The unfurling of feathered masts is sharp and strong enough to dispel the logic of a runway. The silhouette of her body shatters the brilliant sun. For most, flying is a dream. For her, it is an unspoken rule that shows its weight in the covetous faces of humanity. It is a genetically manipulated gift that proves its worth in the howling of air and the distortion of reality beneath her. A gift that, in times like this, is not enough- will never be enough.

-x-x-

She gets there thirty minutes too late. Blabbering through her tears, Nudge is the one to greet her. Everyone is there, nurses, doctors, the flock and some people she doesn't even know, but she sees through them like she would cellophane. The walls around them are white. White, she thinks. White. Clinging onto memories, she sets herself adrift, toes tracing laughter lines as she skims across the halcyon sea, just low enough to wet the tips of her toes. A corner of his lips quirks up, a beautiful asymmetry that twists words into intangible ribbons, spanning the meters between them in a couple of words. _When we grow up, we'll do this with our children_, Fang murmurs, and Max hears _together_.

Then Nudge says something that jerks her back into reality like a broken wrist snapping back from its joint.

"And it's all my fault be...because I caught... caught Aids two years ago and so when we... when we... he got it too. And that's why he... I think... I think he-"

They blur again, this time on purpose. Max can't move. The only part of her brain that is thinking right now is projecting images of her veins unraveling from her fingertips like tiny pitchforks, anchoring her to the ground. The moment finds her eyes inadvertently drawn to Nudge's lips. Pale trembling lips that work their way around stray wet strands of hairs to define the contours and dimensions of anguish. Despair and sorrow congeal at the corners of her mouth, and every tiny movement they make sends shockwaves running through her, stripping the blood vessels from her bone marrows, hollowing out her body until she is nothing, nothing at all, Nudge's words plangent and pulsating when they strike. Like a distinct vibrating beat of a gong. A single note encompassing truth and certainty.

_He loved you._

-x-x-

One month after the death, Max brings nineteen pebbles to the cemetery (seventeen tiny ones and two especially large ones), scratches "Max" on one and "Fang" on the other and lays out a small heart in front of his tombstone. _One for you and one for me. _The stone is algid and biting as winter smothers the streets like a cold snarling inferno, lashing out at trembling fingers and gnawing at heaving lungs. Newly bought gloves acquire a clear wet sheen as she brushes snow off the slab of stone. She sits cross-legged, her breath fluttering and uncertain in her chest, any tears she might have shed long since frozen in her eyes. "Hey" says Max. She takes off a glove and runs a bare hand along the side of the stone. It is like a secret door amongst an endless universe of feathers. If she opens that door, she thinks, will it be the Fang with laughter and an arm around a brown shoulder, the Fang with eyes of calm and promises sitting on young green grass smiling at her, or the Fang she never knew, skimming across the water with two young boys and an even younger girl, the smiles on their faces resplendent as the sky bestows upon them it's early morning rays, saying _I want you to meet someone_? She doesn't know, and won't know until months, years, decades later.

"It's alright," she says, voice fill to the brim with wishes that just keep coming, coming, coming until her heart is overflowing and aching with longing. Max doesn't even know who she's talking to. Her fingers twitch, numb and shaking, like the quivering strings of a violin, and she slides her hand back into her glove. She's too young to be doing this. But then again, teenagers -children- younger than her have wrapped themselves in layers of condolences and pity as their relatives' arms fold around them, unpremeditated puppy eyes earning the lucky ones shortcuts into new homes. Time, Max concedes, has always been relative. For her, it has flown so fast that when it finally stops and rears up on its merciless talons, she is reduced to a weak simpering puddle, atomized by all the '_could have_'s and '_if only_'s she swept past.

The wind comes in all its fierce howling glory, stealing the breath out of her lips as the words she could have said leave her. Soft white crystals start landing on her face, obscuring her vision. Max stands up and begins the slow trudge home, limbs weary and aching in the cold.

She goes back every month after that, and the words keep swirling around her tongue, but always _always _leave before she can say them.

-x-x-

Iggy asks. Once. When Max flares up and snarls that it is _not his business_, he backs off, arms raised and palms out. But every month after that, she notices that he makes sure to walk past the cemetery at five in the evening. When it rains, he brings a surprisingly large umbrella for one person. Later on, he adds chocolate kisses to the itinerary.

-x-x-

"Do you wish he were the one walking you home?" asks Iggy one evening. His face is passive and she can't tell if he's jealous or just being a plain bastard. Max settles for the latter.

"I told you, it's none of your business," she spits tiny venomous arrows at him which he dispels with a unique efficiency that is at once admirable and frustrating.

"Whoa, whoa, cool down, princess," teases Iggy as a smirk works its way into his lips. "Although," he muses, "I rather like you hot as you are." Her mouth drops open, all murderous intent cast aside and forgotten for a moment. It has been so long since love first found its way to her. Her heart beats inside, steady footsteps as it once more wanders through veins and arteries, searching –but never finding- it's way out. "Wh…what?' She sputters. "Are you hitting on me?"

Iggy chuckles, the sound light and low as a cello played pizzicato. "Might be," and then, as if the two are somehow even remotely related, "Want a kiss?" He shrugs his shoulders as he says this, but she can see the slight twitch of his fingers against his jeans, and that in itself says more than all the horribly phrased clichés. He turns to face her, pressing fingers to her lips, and chocolate melts between their heated flesh. The light bends and arches behind Iggy's long hair as it would during a solar eclipse, thin endless columns of pink and gold spreading out from the curved strip. The breeze curls and lifts around them before brushing past the trees and houses. He lifts his fingers and her lips part as she slowly, tentatively, licks chocolate from the inside of her lips. It is sweet enough without being bitter in the first place, Max realizes. She takes a breath, searching for something witty, something right, in the same space of a second. But his quirked lips, once again beautifully asymmetrical, leave her stumbling and dazed, mind fumbling for something –someone- to hold on to. She stutters once, twice, and again. "Iggy, I-" she starts. Oh fuck that, she thinks bitterly.

Hands reach out to fist in Iggy's loose shirt and she pulls him down. She is hurting, desperate and impatient, but when his arm snakes around her waist, one hand warm and gentle on the back of her head, they are nothing like that. Genetically modified super beings and kickass angels indeed, but at the end of it all, just two people yearning for love and to love. Iggy's mouth on hers is an oasis amongst miles of sand, young and beautiful and refreshing. The chocolate gets on his lips too. He draws back slightly as his tongue comes between them to lick it off, and the kiss is just that much more intoxicating with the chocolate on his tongue.

"Max," breathes Iggy as he pulls back, a bit of brown still on the corners of his lips. "I'm sorry for ask-"

"Hey," she says, fingers reaching out to wipe off the leftover chocolate on his lips. Her hands reach for his, stilling his fingers as she interlaces them with her own. "It's alright." She smiles. The sound of happiness is soft and fluttering in the air as butterflies spread out their wings, mosaic patterns twirling and dancing away from their flowers, off to find another field to adorn, which suits her just fine. It's been three months and a year since Fang died, one month less since the Flock divided, torrents of feelings from within tearing them asunder. Three months and a year, twelve walks together, four walks under large umbrellas, one walk in the rain and countless chocolate kisses.

In retrospect, she can't remember when it was that she first smiled, amused by the antics of a young boy across the street, or admiring the picturesque scenery from five-and-a-half kilometers above ground (approximately), or sinking her feet into soft grass, toes curling and relaxing. She can't remember how long it has been since she started listening instead of just watching, giggling at amazingly dirty but undeniably funny jokes that Iggy pulled from the air with a sweep of his arm or a leap of his fingers. But that was her past, this is her present, and she'll be damned if she doesn't make sure it's her future as well. Perhaps in another time, another place, it could be her and Fang. Right now, she doesn't care. Doesn't _want_ to care because she's not going to spend the rest of her screwed up life crying and waiting for something that won't come back.

She squeezes his hands and the words come, calm and sure as the flowing of a river. "I forgive you."

The joy and relief in Iggy's eyes are all too clear, all too true as he leans down to capture her lips yet again. Yes, Max thinks, it is different, because that was Fang and this is Iggy, but maybe she can go from getting over it to getting used to it.

Maybe, just maybe, she already has.

-x-x-

_end_


End file.
